What They Hear

What They Hear When They Hear "Democrat"

I buried a friend this past February in a small church with folding chairs in the back for overflow. There was an overflow. He had been a fixture in that community for many years, was generally liked and missed even when the roads were particularly bad.

Afterward, we stood around in the gravel parking lot shaking hands and saying the appropriate things for people who had gotten to the end a little sooner.

One of the men I had known since we were both young enough to believe that youth was permanent clapped a hand to my shoulder.

He did not smile.

"You know that most everybody in there hates your politics."

I told him that I knew that. "They don't dislike, they," I paused looking more closely at him, "hate."

He walked away, not intending to hurt my feelings I am sure.

He had told me the truth, as far as it went, and perhaps as far as he was willing to go. It was not the whole truth, but it was enough. It was like him saying my tire was going flat or that there was ice ahead on the bridge. There was no malice in his words, no argument even, just statement of fact.

I have been a democrat most of my life. I turned 67 last September, so that is a long time to be a democrat and to wear the label, a word that has always had trouble retaining its meaning.

I have long known what most people thought, or rather felt about my politics. I think that is what I was thinking about as I stood there. Not so much about my politics, but about the word. Democrat.

There was a time that I am sure that the word meant something. A party maybe, or a candidate, or perhaps a position to stand for, or against.

The problem with words is that they are slippery things, often changing, or sliding through time and distance until they have little resemblance to what they were.

I think that is what has happened to the word democrat.

I think that somewhere along the way in some places at least, it stopped being a party and started being an enemy.

My rancher friend thought that might be the problem.

We have been friends for a long time, and have helped each other out in various ways through the years. He is the kind of man who shows up if you have an accident of any sort, and does not ask too many questions about why it happened.

I asked him what he thought the word democrat meant to men like him.

Not about what they thought the policies were, or stood for. I knew what most people thought about the policies, and I was more curious about why those thoughts were there in the first place. About why the word had such power to make good people do the horrible things they did in the last few years.

He looked at me for a long time, and then said, "Because they think I am their enemy." He did not mean all people, he meant they, the people who thought those things. "And you don't vote for people when you think they are your enemy."

There was not much for me to say to that. Not that I did not think he was wrong, but that I also knew he was right.

I have known him longer than either of our marriages. I have had him help me, and have helped him return the favor. We have buried some of the same people. We have stood in kitchens with cold coffee and listened to each other talk about things that neither one really wanted to discuss, just to hear someone else's voice.

I was not his enemy, not really.

But I did not have much to say about that either, because I have seen the look in other people's eyes when they thought that they had found their enemy. Once they have found their enemy it is very hard for them to hear other people, to listen to what they have to say, or to truly hear it. They can become very good at tuning out everything else that might come along, that might distract them, from hearing what they think they know. It is the same power that the word has, to prevent communication, to stifle discussion, to stop people from hearing each other. We have had too much of that in this country, and it is one of those things that we take for granted that disagreement is healthy.

Disagreement has always been part of the American experience. My Pop used to say, "If everybody agreed on everything, there would be no need for either one of us."

Farmers disagree about markets, soldiers about wars, husbands and wives about everything from when they leave for the airport to who gets the last piece of pie. This is America, after all.

What happens when disagreement turns from what a man stands for to who a man is? When it crosses that fence? After that, the facts have to climb over the fence to be heard.

The rancher's wife takes insulin, sometimes cannot afford it. That is a fact, a sad fact, but it is a fact none the less, and a fact that does not need a thesis of three paragraphs or a twelve point PowerPoint presentation to explain. Her husband can believe heartily in all the evil things democrats do, or all the good things republicans do, or believe that he knows best about what is good for this great country of ours despite his lack of experience, and she can be a fact that needs to be dealt with none the less. Both can be true, and that is part of the problem isn't it? One of those pesky facts that we as a country have forgotten, perhaps because there are so few pesky facts left in politics. People are complicated things, and we do not fit ourselves very well into categories. A man can hate your politics and help you fix your fence, and a woman can oppose your candidacy and bring a casserole when your wife is not feeling well. The rancher can believe that you are hurting this country and still stop to help you when he needs to. I have seen it happen often enough to know it.

I am old enough to know that people are much more than their politics, and I am old enough to know that politics are much more likely to be boxes rather than balls. Left and right, red and blue, us and them, good and evil.

I have been among the company of people who have told me that they had little in common with me politically, but I can tell you that most of them had far more in common with me than they would care to admit. Most of them worry about the same things I worry about. Their children, their money, their health. Their roofs not falling in and their children growing up too fast. Their futures and their futures when they are gone. Their opinions of the world may not be the same, but I know that the feelings are. Maybe that is the trouble with the word democrat isn't it?

Because before somebody hears the things I believe, they hear the word, and they hear in it things that I don't necessarily say. They hear what other people have said to them, or what other people said on television or in Washington, or wherever it was that they formed that opinion in the first place. They hear contempt perhaps, and if that is the feeling that they walk away with, then that is the message that was received. All of the other things that I was trying to say, the things that are important, are drowned out by that feeling. Contempt is a loud word, it has trouble sharing a room with other things like reason and discussion.

If I could respond to that man in the parking lot at the funeral, telling me that most of the people there hated my politics, with something that said I understand, I think I would. I do understand, not that I agree completely, because I don't. I understand that when he goes to town and sees the word democrat he does not hear my ideas, he hears what has been said to him, and what has been said to him has been said by other people who have made it very clear to him that he and people like him are not welcome.

And I think that is what I would say to most everybody else. That is the uncomfortable truth that has made so many of us Democrats, or Republicans, or Independents, or just generally annoyed citizens. We have all had things said to us that we don't particularly care for, and it is not a good place to be, or feel like you are coming from.

I have spent fifty years telling myself that if other people would just understand what Democrats believe in, that they would be a little less harsh. That they would see the things that we had in common, and perhaps even change some of their opinions. Maybe. Probably not.

I think it is probably too simple.

People do not go around believing what other people tell them, or carrying things around with them, or forgetting things, or remembering things, just because they want to. They carry things around with them quietly, and then someone says one little word that encapsulates everything they have already been carrying around, and suddenly they can put it somewhere. They can put a name to it, and maybe that gives them power, or maybe it does the opposite, and takes it away.

I don't really know. All I know is I can't argue with something somebody else has carried around for a long time. I can't change that by telling them something else because it has already had the final say. You can argue with a lifetime, but you have to listen to it first.

So, I am trying. I hope it is enough. I hope I can change the way people hear what other people say because I can finally understand the things they have heard before. I hope somebody can hear me say the word Democrat and not hear what they have heard fifty times before, and hear what I mean instead. Not what I didn't say, or what somebody else said to them, but what I meant to say when I said it. I hope this is enough to make somebody change their minds, or at least change the way they hear what other people have to say

There are still plenty things I believe in, and plenty of things I will vote for, so I am not entirely giving that up just because somebody else finds fault with the word Democrat, but I can't really fault other people for finding fault with the word Democrat either, because I know what it can mean. I do know it is important to listen to other people, though, and if I want them to listen to me, I have to listen to them first. It is a hard thing to do, being open to what other people have to say, but it is one of those things that is a whole lot harder not to do. So I am trying, and I think if we all do that, if we try to be open to other people's points of view, we will find that the man across the fence isn't quite as much of an enemy as we were led to believe. He might still have different ideas, or rather vote the other way, or still tell us we are his enemies, but he might also just as soon be the man who stops to help if we need him to. And maybe, just maybe, that is where it has to start. Not with the word. With the man.

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